The Financing Agreement, in terms of which the Thina Sinako Provincial LED Support Programme was established, was signed by the European Commission in Brussels in December 2004, and by the South African Government in March 2005.An Interim Programme Coordination Unit (IPCU) was established through the Eastern Cape Socio-Economic Consultative Council on 1 June 2005 and was disbanded on 31 December 2005. The task of the IPCU was to undertake or commission foundational research, to set up the Programme Steering Committee, to prepare host institutions for the arrival of the members of the Programme Coordination Unit (PCU), and to facilitate communication on the objectives and key aspects of the Programme.
The PCU commenced work in October 2005. Until the end of December 2005, the PCU was closely supported by the IPCU, which also had to systematically hand over responsibilities to the PCU. Since commencing its work, the PCU has launched a number of calls for proposals for each of the three Grant Funds.
Based on lessons learned during the pilot calls for each of the grant funds, improvements in project generation support, project implementation support, and the grant fund evaluation process have been made. The Programme's grant fund instruments have also been increasingly well contexutalised in terms of the larger Programme objectives.
The Programme, which operates under the political guidance of the MEC for Finance, Ecconomic Development & Environmental Affairs, has already allocated more than R 80 million to 86 projects, trained more than 900 people in project development and/or LED, trained 72 LED facilitators, developed an LED Facilitators' Handbook that draws on the project development and implementation support tools and systems developed under this Programme, put together a guideline for the development of municipal LED strategies, facilitated the establishment of District Support Teams in all of the districts of the Province, held nine LED Learning Encounters and two Provincial LED Conferences, and undertaken one international and one national study tour.
